BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) -- War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis or more than 500 people a day since the U.S.-led invasion, a new study reports.

Violence including gunfire and bombs caused the majority of deaths but thousands of people died from worsening health and environmental conditions directly related to the conflict that began in 2003, U.S. and Iraqi public health researchers said.

"Since March 2003, an additional 2.5 percent of Iraq's population have died above what would have occurred without conflict," according to the survey of Iraqi households, titled "The Human Cost of the War in Iraq." (Watch as the study's startling results are revealed -- 1:55 Video)

The survey, being published online by British medical journal The Lancet, gives a far higher number of deaths in Iraq than other organizations. (Read the full report -- pdf)

President Bush slammed the report Wednesday during a news conference in the White House Rose Garden. "I don't consider it a credible report. Neither does Gen. (George) Casey," he said, referring to the top ranking U.S. military official in Iraq, "and neither do Iraqi officials."

"The methodology is pretty well discredited," he added. (Watch Bush dismiss the report -- 1:33 Video)

Ali Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, said in a statement that the report "gives exaggerated figures that contradict the simplest rules of accuracy and investigation."

Last December, Bush said that he estimated about 30,000 people had died since the war began.

When pressed whether he stood by that figure Wednesday, he said, "I stand by the figure a lot of innocent people have lost their life. Six hundred thousand -- whatever they guessed at -- is just not credible."

Researchers randomly selected 1,849 households across Iraq and asked questions about births and deaths and migration for the study led by Gilbert Burnham of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.

They extrapolated the figures to reflect the national picture, saying Iraq's death rate had more than doubled since the invasion.

Iraqis "bear the consequence of warfare," the report said, comparing the situation with other wars: "In the Vietnam War, 3 million civilians died; in the Congo, armed conflict has been responsible for 3.8 million deaths; in East Timor, an estimated 200,000 out of a population of 800,000 died in conflict.

"Recent estimates are that 200,000 have died in Darfur [Sudan] over the past 31 months. Our data, which estimate that 654,965 or 2.5 percent of the Iraqi population has died in this, the largest major international conflict of the 21st century, should be of grave concern to everyone."

The researchers estimated that an additional 654,965 people have died in Iraq since the invasion above what would have been expected from the pre-war mortality rate. They did not ask families whether their dead were civilians or fighters. (Read the report's appendix, including methodology and charts -- pdf)

Violence claimed about 601,000 people, the survey estimated -- the majority killed by gunfire, "though deaths from car bombing have increased from 2005," the study says.

The additional 53,000 people who are believed to have been killed by the effects of the war mostly died in recent months, "suggesting a worsening of health status and access to health care," the study said. It noted, however, that the number of nonviolent deaths "is too small to reach definitive conclusions."

Other key points in the survey:

# The number of people dying in Iraq has risen each year since March 2003.

# Those killed are predominantly males aged 15-44.

# Deaths attributed to coalition forces accounted for 31 percent of the dead.

# Although the "proportion of deaths ascribed to coalition forces has diminished in 2006 ... the actual numbers have increased each year."

The authors said their method of sampling the population is a "standard tool of epidemiology and is used by the U.S. government and many other agencies."

Professionals familiar with such research told CNN that the survey's methodology is sound.

Information for the survey was collected by Iraqi doctors, and analysis was performed by the faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in cooperation with the Center for International Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Death certificates confirmed families' accounts in 92 percent of cases, the researchers said.

It has been very difficult to pin down fatality numbers during the Iraq conflict.

The private British-based Iraq Body Count research group puts the number of civilian deaths at between 43,850 and 48,693. Those figures are based on online media counts and eyewitness accounts.

"The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks)," the group's Web site says. "It also includes excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion."

The latest estimates were released less than a month ahead of U.S. midterm elections that could change the balance of power in the House and Senate, now controlled by Republicans.

So it seems that no one can really come to a consenses on just how many people have died in Iraq. Bush claims 30,000, this survey claims 655,000, and a private british agency estimates 43,000 to 48,000.

So it seems that no one can really come to a consenses on just how many people have died in Iraq. Bush claims 30,000, this survey claims 655,000, and a private british agency estimates 43,000 to 48,000.

The Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq shows Saddam killed 600,000people in his 24 year rein not including the Iraq-Iran war dead from either side. Its amazing that same total has been reached in the 3 years of our occupation.

If you've read The Pentagon's New Map or Blueprint for Action, you may be familiar with Thomas PM Barnett... anyhoo... he posted an interesting read on his blog about the recent bodycounts:

Quote:

I am constantly dismayed at how our nation and the West in general blithely write off widespread preventable death inside the Gap, in effect accepting the long, slow pile-up of bodies rather than risk the inevitable short-term plus-ups associated with interventions (for example, watch Sudan unfold for several years or go in and do the killing required to stop this slo-mo genocide).

WRT Iraq, it's always bugged me how many Iraqis we killed through sanctions or by allowing Saddam to continue in power following the first Gulf War. Stopping that loss of life by taking down Saddam struck me as a very good argument in 2003 and still does to this day.

That war was justifiable on all sorts of moral grounds, but how we've conducted this postwar has not been justifiable.

A complex argument to some, ***-covering to others. But to me, they are legitimately separated, just like the decision for surgery versus the course of care post-surgical. If the operation needed to be done, then you do it, but once you commit to that, you have to commit to the follow-up care. Don't bother to win the war if you're not going to bother to win the peace.

600k is pretty hard to believe. Plus, the methodology employed sounds very unreliable.

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I doubt will ever get an accurate toll of the number of civilian dead... Personnaly i think that the 600k+ number is way to high. But i also think that Bush's number is also a bit low. I heard that the Iraqi Gov't has put the death toll to civilians at around 100K.

who knows though?

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I doubt will ever get an accurate toll of the number of civilian dead... Personnaly i think that the 600k+ number is way to high. But i also think that Bush's number is also a bit low. I heard that the Iraqi Gov't has put the death toll to civilians at around 100K.

who knows though?

I agree whole heartedly, and to top that, some **** was on CSPAN the other day claiming that the death toll in Iraq averaged between 500-600 a day over the past 6 months, complete and utter BS, plain and simple.

600k is about how many jews were killed in concentration camps. No way it could be 600k

lol try 6 million jews.

i don't think the 600k mark is all that unreasonable. this is total deaths, not just collateral damage by the military and insurgents. this includes disease and other natural forms of death. the military reports that i've read put the number of insurgents dead at above or around 80k. so to say 5 or 6 people died while trying to take down one insurgent is not unreasonable in my mind.

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looking for ebladed/raced cockers and LCD and IR3 Angels for a trade....

yah did we all forget that saddam and his sons would kill people for sheer enjoyment?

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